Fred Ottenburg, smartly dressed for the afternoon, with a long black coat and gaiters was sitting in the dusty parlor¹ of the Everett House. His manner was not in accord with his personal freshness, the good lines of his clothes, and the shining smoothness of his hair. His attitude was one of deep dejection, and his face, though it had the cool, unimpeachable² fairness possible only to a very blond young man, was by no means happy. A page shuffled³ into the room and looked about. When he made out the dark figure in a shadowy corner, tracing over the carpet pattern with a cane⁴, he droned, “The lady says you can come up, sir.”  
Fred picked up his hat and gloves and followed the creature, who seemed an aged⁵ boy in uniform, through dark corridors that smelled of old carpets. The page knocked at the door of Thea’s sitting-room⁶, and then wandered away. Thea came to the door with a telegram in her hand. She asked Ottenburg to come in and pointed⁷ to one of the clumsy, sullen⁸-looking chairs that were as thick as they were high. The room was brown with time, dark in spite of two windows that opened on union Square, with dull curtains and carpet, and heavy, respectable-looking furniture in somber⁹ colors. The place was saved from utter dismalness¹⁰ by a coal fire under the black marble mantelpiece,—brilliantly reflected in a long mirror that hung between the two windows. This was the first time Fred had seen the room, and he took it in quickly, as he put down his hat and gloves.
 
Thea seated herself at the walnut¹¹ writing-desk, still holding the slip of yellow paper. “Dr. Archie is coming,” she said. “He will be here Friday morning.”
 
“Well, that’s good, at any rate,” her visitor replied with a determined¹² effort at cheerfulness. Then, turning to the fire, he added blankly, “If you want him.”
 
“Of course I want him. I would never have asked such a thing of him if I hadn’t wanted him a great deal. It’s a very expensive trip.” Thea spoke¹³ severely¹⁴. Then she went on, in a milder tone. “He doesn’t say anything about the money, but I think his coming means that he can let me have it.”
 
Fred was standing¹⁵ before the mantel, rubbing his hands together nervously¹⁶. “Probably. You are still determined to call on him?” He sat down tentatively in the chair Thea had indicated. “I don’t see why you won’t borrow from me, and let him sign with you, for instance. That would constitute a perfectly¹⁷ regular business transaction. I could bring suit against either of you for my money.”
 
Thea turned toward him from the desk. “We won’t take that up again, Fred. I should have a different feeling about it if I went on your money. In a way I shall feel freer on Dr. Archie’s, and in another way I shall feel more bound. I shall try even harder.” She paused. “He is almost like my father,” she added irrelevantly¹⁸.
 
“Still, he isn’t, you know,” Fred persisted. “It wouldn’t be anything new. I’ve loaned money to students before, and got it back, too.”
 
“Yes; I know you’re generous,” Thea hurried over it, “but this will be the best way. He will be here on Friday did I tell you?”
 
“I think you mentioned it. That’s rather soon. May I smoke?” he took out a small cigarette case. “I suppose you’ll be off next week?” he asked as he struck a match.
 
“Just as soon as I can,” she replied with a restless movement of her arms, as if her dark-blue dress were too tight for her. “It seems as if I’d been here forever.”
 
“And yet,” the young man mused¹⁹, “we got in only four days ago. Facts really don’t count for much, do they? It’s all in the way people feel: even in little things.”
 
Thea winced²⁰, but she did not answer him. She put the telegram back in its envelope and placed it carefully in one of the pigeonholes²¹ of the desk.
 
“I suppose,” Fred brought out with effort, “that your friend is in your confidence?”
 
“He always has been. I shall have to tell him about myself. I wish I could without dragging you in.”
 
Fred shook himself. “Don’t bother about where you drag me, please,” he put in, flushing. “I don’t give—” he subsided²² suddenly.
 
“I’m afraid,” Thea went on gravely, “that he won’t understand. He’ll be hard on you.”
 
Fred studied the white ash of his cigarette before he flicked²³ it off. “You mean he’ll see me as even worse than I am. Yes, I suppose I shall look very low to him: a fifthrate scoundrel. But that only matters in so far as it hurts his feelings.”
 
Thea sighed. “We’ll both look pretty low. And after all, we must really be just about as we shall look to him.”
 
Ottenburg started up and threw his cigarette into the grate. “That I deny. Have you ever been really frank with this preceptor of your childhood, even when you were a child? Think a minute, have you? Of course not! From your cradle, as I once told you, you’ve been ‘doing it’ on the side, living your own life, admitting to yourself things that would horrify²⁴ him. You’ve always deceived him to the extent of letting him think you different from what you are. He couldn’t understand then, he can’t understand now. So why not spare yourself and him?”
 
She shook her head. “Of course, I’ve had my own thoughts. Maybe he has had his, too. But I’ve never done anything before that he would much mind. I must put myself right with him,—as right as I can,—to begin over. He’ll make allowances for me. He always has. But I’m afraid he won’t for you.”
 
“Leave that to him and me. I take it you want me to see him?” Fred sat down again and began absently to trace the carpet pattern with his cane. “At the worst,” he spoke wanderingly, “I thought you’d perhaps let me go in on the business end of it and invest along with you. You’d put in your talent and ambition and hard work, and I’d put in the money and—well, nobody’s good wishes are to be scorned, not even mine. Then, when the thing panned out big, we could share together. Your doctor friend hasn’t cared half so much about your future as I have.”
 
“He’s cared a good deal. He doesn’t know as much about such things as you do. Of course you’ve been a great deal more help to me than any one else ever has,” Thea said quietly. The black clock on the mantel began to strike. She listened to the five strokes and then said, “I’d have liked your helping²⁵ me eight months ago. But now, you’d simply be keeping me.”
 
“You weren’t ready for it eight months ago.” Fred leaned back at last in his chair. “You simply weren’t ready for it. You were too tired. You were too timid. Your whole tone was too low. You couldn’t rise from a chair like that,”—she had started up apprehensively²⁶ and gone toward the window.—“You were fumbling²⁷ and awkward. Since then you’ve come into your personality. You were always locking horns with it before. You were a sullen little drudge²⁸ eight months ago, afraid of being caught at either looking or moving like yourself. Nobody could tell anything about you. A voice is not an instrument that’s found ready-made. A voice is personality. It can be as big as a circus and as common as dirt.—There’s good money in that kind, too, but I don’t happen to be interested in them.—Nobody could tell much about what you might be able to do, last winter. I divined more than anybody else.”
 
“Yes, I know you did.” Thea walked over to the oldfashioned mantel and held her hands down to the glow of the fire. “I owe so much to you, and that’s what makes things hard. That’s why I have to get away from you altogether. I depend on you for so many things. Oh, I did even last winter, in Chicago!” She knelt down by the grate and held her hands closer to the coals. “And one thing leads to another.”
 
Ottenburg watched her as she bent²⁹ toward the fire. His glance brightened a little. “Anyhow, you couldn’t look as you do now, before you knew me. You were clumsy. And whatever you do now, you do splendidly. And you can’t cry enough to spoil your face for more than ten minutes. It comes right back, in spite of you. It’s only since you’ve known me that you&rsqu............